The North Sea was an unforgiving expanse of grey and black, its freezing spray stinging Lola's face as the ship cut through the rolling waves.
Behind them, the coast of the Netherlands was nothing more than a low, dark smudge on the horizon.
Lola gripped the wooden railing of the deck, her knuckles turning white.
She felt physically wretched—a low, feverish heat burned beneath her skin, a lingering consequence of the frantic escape from the Leiden theater. Her heart ached with a heavy, complicated guilt. The image of the handsome, sharp-witted doctor who had held her hand in the dark refused to leave her mind.
A heavy, calloused hand landed firmly on her shoulder, breaking her out of her deep thought.
She didn't need to look up to know the ring of cold iron on those fingers belonged to her father, Don-Francisco.
"How is Mateus?" she asked, her voice raw and strained against the howling wind.
Don-Fran stared out at the dark waters, his weathered face set in grim lines.
"He will live. With the help of that doctor lover of yours, who masterfully sliced away and breached the deathly filth, we were finally able to wear off the seed. The corruption that Khoryv had secretly planted into his flesh during our last encounter is gone. At least They won't be able to track us down so easily now."
He turned his back to the sea, his grey eyes narrowing sharply as he looked down at his daughter. His tone suddenly dropped into a harsh, commanding growl.
"But you need to stop staring at the wake, girl! Focus on our damned main task. Get that negro doctor out of your head!"
Lola's temper flared, the fever in her blood snapping to the surface.
"I get it!" she yelled back at her father, her hand dropping to the heavy handle of the rapier resting against her hip.
Don-Fran frowned, his stern expression suddenly fracturing into something far more complex.
"That is not what I meant, Lola. My guts have been on absolute alert since the moment we met him. Even the cards in my coat reacted to his presence whenever I came close to him. He is not nearly as simple as he seems to be... at least, for our sake, I hope he is. Besides," a sharp, playful grin suddenly broke across the old patriarch's face, his tone shifting instantly from a harsh commander to a teasing performer, "I left him the tarot deck. The boy has a spectacular future for a magician!"
Lola rolled her eyes, letting out a weary sigh at her father's infuriating duality. Without another word, she turned away from the wind and descended the wooden stairs into the dark, stifling belly of the ship.
The lower deck smelled of bilge water, rotting timber, and the distinctive, suffocating stench of sulfur.
Lola walked past the wall, rows of ordinary cargo. One would think that there was nothing behind it.
But Lola knew the other way around.
It took her another ten minutes to clear the barrels, chests and heavy sacks until she reached a heavy, iron-reinforced oak door at the very back of the hidden hold. She unlocked the heavy padlocks and stepped into a dimly lit, caged room.
In the center of the cell, chained heavily to the structural beams of the ship, sat a grotesque, torn silhouette. In the flickering light of her oil lantern, the creature's true horror was laid bare. Its skin was entirely covered in jagged, overlapping green scales, and a single, sharp horn protruded like a sickening chin-beard from its lower jaw. Two vertical, tooth-lined mouths split the flesh of its cheeks, while a single, massive, unblinking eye dominated the center of its forehead.
A lesser demon.
As the lantern light hit its face, the creature's single eye widened, and it let out a low, wet rasping sound from all three of its mouths.
"Lola de Alarcón..." the demon hissed, its long, slithery purple tongue emerging from its central maw to lick its scaled lips. "I must admit, I vastly prefer your exquisite company to that of your old wretch of a father. Why did you left me alone for so long..."
Crack!
With a fluid, practiced snap of her wrist, Lola unleashed the knout that was promptly lying nearby. The heavy leather cord tore through the air, striking the demon sharply across its scaled chest.
Instead of a scream of agony, a low, guttural moan of pure, twisted pleasure erupted from the creature's cheek-mouths. It strained against its heavy iron chains, its single eye rolling back in its socket.
"More..." the demon whimpered pleasantly, a sickening grin splitting its face. "Ah, the bite of iron and leather... it reminds me so beautifully of the glorious times when I was trapped in the deep vaults of the Vatican."
The demon's eye suddenly snapped back down, focusing intently on Lola's face. Its nostrils flared, tasting the stagnant air of the hold. A look of genuine, profound confusion crossed its monstrous features.
"But wait... what is that scent on you, daughter of Barcelona?" the creature muttered, its mouths moving in a discordant harmony. "There is a faint, clinging smell of a devil on your clothes... but it is so weak, so entirely unfamiliar. It does not belong to any of the 73... How strange..."
Crack!
Lola brought the knout down a second time, the brutal impact instantly silencing the monster's train of thought. She stepped closer, the orange light of the lantern casting her sharp, merciless shadow over the trembling entity.
"Keep your tongue behind your teeth, merchant Squza," Lola said, her voice dropping into a lethal, quiet register. "I am going to ask you one last time, and if the answer does not satisfy me, I will let my father use his rapiers to peel those scales from your flesh one by one.
Her eyes were as cold as the sea outside.
"Where did you hide the ashes of Hugues de Payens?"